Abstract

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This thesis presents an experimentalist's approach to data storage and information processing using volume holography. In Chapter 1, a short introduction in volume holography and some commonly used recording materials are presented. Chapter 2 discusses in detail a specific recording material, the DuPont photopolymer. The recording behavior of the DuPont photopolymer was fully characterized by using a new multiplexing method called peristrophic multiplexing. From its recording behavior, we were able to derive an exposure schedule to multiplex equal strength holograms in the same volume. This method of determining the exposure schedule was put to the test by multiplexing 1,000 holograms in a piece of photopolymer that is only 100 microns thick.

One of the goals of this thesis is to demonstrate that information can be stored much more densely using holography. In Chapter 3, results from several different high density holographic data storage experiments are presented. In one experiment, a surface density of 100 bits/[...] was achieved. That is approximately two orders of magnitude higher than the compact discs we use today.

Holography can also be used to process a vast amount of information very quickly through the parallel nature of optics. Chapter 4 shows how optical correlator systems, using a holographic database, can be trained to perform complex tasks. By programming the holographic database appropriately, we have used optical correlator systems to navigate an autonomous vehicle, to recognize/track a target, and to identify users through sequential fingerprint inputs.